Scholars

Rhonda Johnson, DrPH, MPH, FNP

Visiting Scholar 2010

ICHR hosted the Fall 2010 sabbatical for Dr. Rhonda M. Johnson, who serves as Chair of the Department of Health Sciences, Associate Professor of Public Health at the University of Alaska Anchorage (UAA) and director of the statewide graduate program in public health. The distance-delivered Alaska MPH program focuses on northern and circumpolar health issues, and this was the focus of Dr. Johnson’s sabbatical as well.

Primary objectives of the sabbatical included:

• strengthening of circumpolar health research and academic partnerships in our region;
• development of several collaborative proposals with ICHR for future projects, with particular emphasis on effective participatory methods, shared health concerns and improved public health practice; and
• increased understanding of northern Canadian context and resources to inform ongoing new and existing graduate course development, focused on circumpolar health issues, participatory research methods, health communication strategies and public health ethics.

In addition, the telecommunications capacity and support of ICHR allowed Dr. Johnson to continue her leadership role from a distance in the NIH-funded Alaska Center for Addressing Health Disparities through Research and Education (CAHDRE), several ongoing MPH faculty and student projects, and planning for the next Summer Institute in Circumpolar Health Research to be held in Oulu, Finland in June 2011.

Stephanie Irlbacher-Fox, PhD

Research Associate

A political anthropologist, Stephanie has spent the last decade working for Dene, Métis, and Inuvialuit people in the Northwest Territories on self government negotiations, and related processes. In 2005, Stephanie received a PhD from Cambridge University, England, where her research focused on the relationship between Canadian Aboriginal policy, self government negotiations and the social suffering experienced by indigenous peoples. She currently lives in Yellowknife where she works as a political advisor and consultant to indigenous governments. In 2009, she organized the Northern Governance Policy Research Conference with the assistance of ICHR’s staff.

Julia Christensen

PhD Student (McGill) 2008

Julia Christensen is currently a Trudeau Scholar and PhD Candidate in Geography at McGill University. Her thesis research focuses on homelessness and housing insecurity in the Northwest Territories. She is also a co-investigator in the IPY Gas, Arctic Peoples, and Securities (GAPS) Project, a Julia sits as the student representative on the Social Economy of the North (SERRNoCa) steering committee, and is co-director of the International Polar Year Time Capsule Project as well as the Northern Students/Northern Research initiative which ICHR has supported through its foundation.